Tag Archives: 2-4-D

Ottawa. Monday, November 19, 2012. Today, civil society groups Équiterre, Nature Québec, the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, Prevent Cancer Now, the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network, and Vigilance OGM denounced regulatory approval of Canada’s first corn and soy crop plants genetically engineered (also called genetically modified or GM) to tolerate doses of the herbicide 2,4-D. The groups say that the new GM crops, developed Dow AgroSciences, will lead to increased herbicide use, with more toxic pesticides in the environment and our food. Continue reading →

A fundamental change occurred when the first genetically engineered crops went commercial in 1996. Farmers who planted GE crops that were altered to withstand continued application of herbicide glyphosate began to rely on a single system for weed management — the use of glyphosate, sold under brand name Roundup and manufactured by Monsanto. As Dr. David A. Mortensen of the Pennsylvania State University noted in his testimony before the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee on July 28, 2010, “[i]n evolutionary terms, widespread and persistent glyphosate use without diversity in weed control practices is a strong selection pressure for weeds able to survive glyphosate.” (”Mortensen Testimony”). In other words, get ready for the invasion of superweeds.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — When the weed killer Roundup was introduced in the 1970s, it proved it could kill nearly any plant while still being safer than many other herbicides, and it allowed farmers to give up harsher chemicals and reduce tilling that can contribute to erosion.

But 34 years later, a few sturdy species of weed resistant to Roundup have evolved, forcing farmers to return to some of the less environmentally safe practices they abandoned decades ago.

The situation is the worst in the South, where some farmers now walk fields with hoes, killing weeds in a way their great-grandfathers were happy to leave behind. And the problem is spreading quickly across the Corn Belt and beyond, with Roundup now proving unreliable in killing at least 10 weed species in at least 22 states. Some species, like Palmer amaranth in Arkansas and water hemp and marestail in Illinois, grow fast and big, producing tens of thousands of seeds.

(NaturalNews) Gastroschisis is a birth defect in which the intestines, and sometimes other organs, develop outside the fetal abdomen and poke out through an opening in the abdominal wall. Long considered a rare occurrence, gastroschisis has mysteriously been on the rise over the last three decades. In fact, the incidence of the defect has soared, increasing two to four times in the last 30 years. But why?

Researchers think they’ve found the answer. The culprit behind the suffering of babies born with this condition appears to be the agricultural chemical atrazine. That’s the conclusion of a study just presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM) held in Chicago.

Researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle were alerted to a higher than normal number of cases in of the birth defect in babies born in eastern Washington. So they began investigating to see if the increased incidence was due to some kind of environmental exposure in that area.Continue reading →